The morning after the Mathew Street chaos, a battered Greg demands his share of the survival cash, forcing Billy into a corner. Meanwhile, the union ballot count delivers a devastating blow to Jim’s career, and Sandra and Chrissie prepare to face their neighbours at Sue’s emergency community meeting.
The morning light over the Mersey was a sickly, bruised purple. Billy Harrison stood by his sorting frame at the Copperas Hill depot, his fingers moving mechanically through a stack of brown envelopes, but his mind was entirely spent. His knuckles were raw from clenching his fists all night, and the ghost of the sub-bass from the Mathew Street club was still rattling inside his skull.
"Harrison. In the locker room. Now."
The whisper didn't come from a supervisor. Greg stood by the side fire exit, his black bomber jacket zipped to his chin to hide the bandages wrapping his ribs. His face was a mess of yellowing bruises, his left eye swollen half-shut. He looked less like a bouncer today and more like a man who had reached the absolute end of his tether.
Billy dropped his letters and followed him into the empty, cold locker room, the floor smelling of industrial pine disinfectant. "Greg, look, I’m sorry about last night—"
"I don't want your apologies, Billy," Greg rasped, pressing his back against a metal locker, his breathing shallow and painful. "Kevin took the three hundred quid for Mikey’s debt. But I’m the one who took the boots to the ribs, and I’m the one who’s got no gig at the Kwik Save and no door work left in town. I need a hundred quid for my rent by Friday, or my gaffer’s throwing me on the street."
"I haven't got it, Greg!" Billy whispered frantically, throwing his hands up. "My old man took our holiday savings to cover the first bit, and the university cash went straight into Kevin’s pocket to save Danny's neck. I’m completely skint."
Greg stepped forward, his massive frame casting a long shadow under the flickering strip lights. "Then you better find it, lad. Because if I’m going down to the dole office on Friday morning, I’m taking your name and Danny’s name down to the Post Office investigators with me. I’m not carrying the can for your little student rave scheme while you sit here in your nice blue uniform."
Across the corridor, the double doors of the main depot floor swung open with a heavy metallic clang. The final union ballot count was underway.
Jim Harrison stood at the head of the long sorting tables, surrounded by a tight crowd of posties, drivers, and loaders. The air was thick with the scent of damp wool and stale tobacco. Beside him, Mr. Vaughan was systematically counting the paper slips, his pencil ticking against the ledger with a rhythm that felt like a death march.
Jim’s face was unreadable, but inside, his chest was tight. The private warning about the London development corporation was a shadow over the whole room. If the vote was a no, the union lost its teeth; if it was a yes, the government would use the strike as an excuse to liquidate the entire south docks network immediately.
Vaughan laid his pencil down, clearing his throat with a wet, raspy cough. "The ballot is closed," Vaughan announced, his voice echoing off the corrugated iron ceiling. "The vote for industrial action is carried. By a majority of twelve."
A cheer rose from the younger lads at the back, but Jim didn't join in. He looked across the room and caught his son Billy walking back from the locker room, his face pale and his eyes hollow. Jim knew what the lads didn't: they had just voted to march straight into a trap, and his own family was too fractured to help him lead them out of it.
Back on Dockside crescent, the afternoon was turning bitter. Sue was standing inside the drafty, timber-framed mobile classroom at the back of the comprehensive school, arranging plastic chairs into a tight semicircle. The blackboard behind her still carried the remnants of a lesson on the cotton trade, but tonight, the history being discussed was much closer to the pavement.
The door creaked open, and Sandra and Chrissie walked in, their coats buttoned to their chins. Sandra was clutching a small folder containing their amended tenancy agreement, her fingers twitching against the cardboard.
"Is anyone else coming, Sue?" Sandra asked, looking at the empty rows of plastic chairs.
"Mike the milkman’s bringing a few of the lads from the estate committee," Sue said, offering a reassuring smile as she handed them a couple of mugs of tea. "And Jim said he’d be here after the depot meeting. Martha Green’s been talking to the neighbours all afternoon, trying to get them to boycott it, but we’ve got the numbers, Chrissie. You have to believe that."
Chrissie set her mug down on a student desk, her jaw tightening as she looked toward the dark windows facing the crescent. "Having the numbers on paper don't mean a thing if people won't look you in the eye, Sue. Tonight's about finding out who our real neighbours are. And who’s just waiting for the bailiffs to turn up."
Dockside has been developed using AI.
